GOP senators wonder: Am I next?

There’s a new rule in American politics: Republican senators and Senate hopefuls who are too close to Washington and show streaks of moderation are toast — or most certainly poised for a grilling of their lifetime.

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Lugar's concession speech

Lugar’s Tuesday night blowout loss to Richard Mourdock is shocking to longtime fans and friends, but it’s hardly surprising to any student of Republican races in 2010 and 2012 — and to the 13 GOP senators taking stock of what all this means for them in 2014.

“It’s the environment we’re living in right now,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Republican Conference, told POLITICO. “There are lots of folks who are watching every member’s voting records; you’re not only going to be attacked by your opponent on the Democrat side, but there are obviously Republicans out there who may not like when you’ve been around a few years and you got a lot of votes.”

There are some notable exceptions to the Lugar rule — like Republican Sens. Scott Brown in Massachusetts and Bob Corker in Tennessee, who are skating by their primaries despite having a reputation as deal makers. And Nebraska Treasurer Don Stenberg, a tea party favorite, may very well lose in next week’s Senate primary.

But there is no denying that any member who breaks even episodically with conservative orthodoxy could face a serious primary, like Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch; flee the Senate before a potential intraparty fight, such as Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe; or see their careers ended in an embarrassing loss before they even get to the general election,like Lugar, Bennett and Castle.

And that means GOP incumbents are already preparing for 2014 challenges from the right to avoid pulling a Lugar of their own. Several senators are raising more money quicker, going home more often and setting up more robust campaign infrastructures well ahead of the usual schedule.

“I know we’ll have a primary,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) said of his 2014 bid for a third term.

Many of Lugar’s problems appear unique to his own race — he hasn’t lived in Indiana since 1977 — and some Republicans are quick to blame his struggles to running a flat-footed campaign.

Yet despite his local problems, Lugar also couldn’t escape the reputation of being everything the tea party movement hates: a disconnected establishment Washington type known for making deals and occasionally breaking with the party.

There’s a new rule in American politics: Republican senators and Senate hopefuls who are too close to Washington and show streaks of moderation are toast — or most certainly poised for a grilling of their lifetime.

I think Republicans tend to hold their public servants accountable more then Democrats. Democrats will vote again and again and again for their representitive despite his/her performance. People like John Kerry and Robert Bryd come to mind for example.

Each of the three, older, senators mentioned here become somewhat dis-connected from the people they represented and thus the people stopped supporting them.

The same thing has happened this past four years, Obama/Biden seem very disconnnected from the American people who are really struggling now and Obama still offers no ideas and no plans for the future, sad.

We need people in Washington DC who care about the people they represent and this great country, leave the Ideology at home please, be an American first.

Romney/Rubio.........................2012 time to get down to serious business.

Lugar is frail and not capable of keeping a busy senate schedule. This was apparent to Hoosier voters and hurt him at the ballot boxes. A lot of voters (and not merely tea party nuts or Republican extremists) are fed up with oldsters wishing to make Capitol Hill their personal retirement home. That Lugar didn't have a residence in Indiana was sheer political stupidity and arrogance and also hurt him badly at the polls.

Mourdock is an idiot who filed a lawsuit trying to insure our auto industry went down in flames. He promises (threatens) to be uncooperative if elected and to be another radical Republican anti-American government source of gridlock and Capitol Hill dysfunction. Like many of his fellow wrongheaded Republican extremists that embrace a severe austerity over growing our economy to solve our job and debt problems, Mourdock, if elected, will do what he can to to turn the United States into a permanent plutocracy by getting rid of regulating laws that in any way impede the vicious greed of Korporate Amerika. Mourdock stands for no healthcare for most Hoosiers (because of no regulation of health insurers or providers), voucherized and shrunken Medicare, and the privatization of Social Security. He will fatten the military industrial complex and bang the drums for war (be it in the senate or across the ocean), while voting to slash all discretionary spending to help 99% of Americans.

Hopefully, Mourdock's win last night will provide the Democrats with another unexpected seat in the senate in 2012.

Hoosiers had no problems with sending a carpetbagging lobbyist to the senate in the form of Dan Coats in 2010. Indiana is threatening to become another political embarrassment, like South Carolina, Mississippi, Arizona and other politically wacky states.

good!!!!!!!!! now we must defeat the democrat. demos want amnesty for illegal aliens; we do not. also, let's defeat obama in 11 2012, obama is destroying our country with bad policies just like europe. no more obama and no more demos. never support demos.

The Senate and House of Representatives have both been leaving Americans hanging out to fiscally dry. It should not surprise anyone that after all this time of inaction, recalcitrance, infighting, McConnell style goofball-redneck politics, that voters throw these guys out and try something different. This next Presidential election can be boiled down to the MONEY vs. the PEOPLE. Since the Supreme Court has declared that the MONEY has the same rights as the PEOPLE, it's likely to be a jump ball, leaving the only recourse for real change by voters (PEOPLE) to abandon the familiar in hopes of getting America to a more level position, hopefully by getting a few longtime prowlers of an insular Washington cult to pay attention.

We cleaned house in 2006 after the reckless spenders hit us with $2 Trillion dollars and now we're cleaning house agains with politicians who have allowed President Obama to recklessly spend $6 Trillion dollars.

From the article:There’s a new rule in American politics: Republican senators and Senate hopefuls who are too close to Washington and show streaks of moderation are toast — or most certainly poised for a grilling of their lifetime.

With Republicans like Dick Lugar and Mike Castle, who the hell needs Democrats?! These co-called moderates--Peggy Noonan calls them "adults"--in the GOP haVE this incessant desire to reach across the aisle to meet tyranny halfway. They were instrumental in helping the Dems create a catastrophic debt.

Perceptions: We need people in Washington DC who care about the people they represent and this great country, leave the Ideology at home please, be an American first.

Without an ideological/moral perspective, how in the hell do you know right from wrong? You oughta just stick to being a cheerleader for Mitt Romney, that's what you do best. Do you know why the people of Indiana REALLY threw out the old turncoat Lugar? Because he was doing the WRONG things for America! That requires you to make an ideological judgement call. Do you know that Lugar was the GOP point man for the Law of the Sea Treaty?

Oh, I'm sure that the corrupt old coot cared for his constituents, and brought the bacon home. But he was doing the WRONG things when it came to America, and the Tea Party knew it! They're "ideological." :-)

BlueLight: We cleaned house in 2006 after the reckless spenders hit us with $2 Trillion dollars and now we're cleaning house agains with politicians who have allowed President Obama to recklessly spend $6 Trillion dollars.

Wish Democrats did the same thing for the good of America!

That would be a cold day in hell! The Dems are ideologically wedded to the wrong-headed idea that government intrusions and outright TAKEOVERS at all levels of the free market is a good thing. They're wrong as usual, but for them to get rid of their BIG spenders would be tantamount to losing their religion, and admitting that they were wrong.

My congress critter, John Mica, has gotten a bit too comfortable and "accomodating" in his seat. He's better start looking over his shoulder.

What the republican party has evolved into over the past thirty years is nothing less than organised crime. Republicans deregulated everything removing controls that held greed in check and that begot the ENRONs all the way to the theft of the peoples wealth by republican "investors" who took away American jobs for profits and continue to fleece the public with excessive bank fees to fund their platinum parachutes and obscene wages of the republican "executive class". Republican lies and deciet have left America exactly as Romney's dad left American motors, a history lesson and Rubio is the product of the Cuban invasion of America excaserbated by Reagan's Murial prision boat lift of 1982 and Miami-Dade no longer speaks emglish nor is it a part of America any more. Just look at the crime rate there to see what continued republican "leadership" will bring to your back yard!

daemert, what, specifially, will Romney do to put us in a depression? Politicians speak in generalities when we let them, but we know what Obama has done and we can deduce what he will do. We know about some things Romney did in Massachusetts and business (the Dems have demonized him, but, for the most part, that is like suing a surgeon who saved your life but left a scar). I am not a Romney fan, but, I see him as a problem solver. However, maybe you know something I don't, so, how will he put is into a depression?

From Tea Party TITAN, Phil Kerpen: Mourdock's victory is proof that the tea party is alive and well and intends to hold both political parties accountable. The old politics of the pork-barrel are over, which is why Lugar's recent insertion of $800 million in biofuels subsidies in the Senate Farm Bill did nothing to boost his political fortunes.

Mourdock will win the general election. In 2010 Mourdock carried 88 of Indiana's 92 counties and outperformed Senator Dan Coats (who himself won in a romp) by over 100,000 votes.

Mourdock will be a fine senator - and a reminder to Republicans considering betraying free-market principle to remember their friend Dick Lugar.